So it was

Mr Javed Ashraf Qazi, former Director-General of Inter-Services Intelligence and currently a senator, is reported to have said that: “We must not be afraid of admitting that Jaish [Jaish-e Mohammad] was involved in the deaths of thousands of innocent Kashmiris, in the bombing of the Indian parliament, in Daniel Pearl’s murder and in attempts on President Pervez Musharraf’s life”. This statement is as close to the truth as one can get. Of course, Mr Qazi has not revealed anything new. But his statement amounts to an admission of sorts and is important because it brings on semi-official record what some have known and said and suffered for a long time.

The JM “boys” have now turned against their former “masters and handlers”. It was inevitable. [Daily Times]

Indeed.

Someone in the intelligence establishment should have seen it coming and taken steps to avoid the discomfort and embarrassment caused subsequently by it. But no one did. Indeed, the establishment tried to cover its lack of foresight by working overtime to create the impression that the “turnaround” came because of changed “ground realities” rather than an inherent and antagonistic contradiction between the JM’s core interests and the Pakistani state’s core interests. The very fact that the state has lost its ability to calibrate or change its policy by use of certain proxies means the latter’s agenda was and is different from that of the state’s agenda. This disconnect was built into the relationship and would have come to the fore whenever the state felt it did not “need” such groups. Even if India had conceded Kashmir, thereby eliminating the need for low-intensity jihad, then too these groups would have turned inwards. Their next jihad would have been to turn Pakistan into a Sunni theocratic state. Post-September 11 events have merely acted as a catalyst for this dichotomy to come into play.[Daily Times]